Thanks to the FA site, for the [gold-colored] FA 150th Anniversary crest, from a banner at thefa.com.
Thanks to BBC.co.uk/football/fa cup, for the image of the fixtures list on the map page, bbc.com/sport/football/fa-cup/fixtures.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2013–14 FA Cup‘.

FA Cup – news, fixtures, results (bbc.co.uk/sport/football/fa-cup).
There are 65 clubs still alive in the competition, and not the 64 that the Third Round is supposed to have, because the Bristol Rovers v Crawley Town 2nd Round replay was abandoned due to a water-logged pitch (on 18 Dec. 2013 at the Broadfield Stadium in Crawley, West Sussex). The two will play Wednesday night the 8th of January. The Bristol Rovers/Crawley Town winner will play their 3rd Round match versus Birmingham City at St Andrew’s on either Tuesday night or Wednesday night the 14 or 15th January.Televised matches: {see this, ‘2013–14 FA Cup/Broadcasting rights, Third Round Proper‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
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Thanks to the FA site, for the [gold-colored] FA 150th Anniversary crest, from a banner at thefa.com.
Thanks to BBC.co.uk/football/fa cup, for the image of the fixtures list on the map page, bbc.com/sport/football/fa-cup/fixtures.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2013–14 FA Cup‘.

Thanks to the FA site, for the [gold-colored] FA 150th Anniversary crest, from a banner at thefa.com.
Thanks to BBC.co.uk/football/fa cup, for the image of the fixtures list on the map page, bbc.com/sport/football/fa-cup/fixtures.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2013–14 FA Cup‘.

The 2013–14 FA Cup is the 133rd season of the competition.
The FA Cup is open to all English clubs (plus 6 Welsh clubs, and now one club from Guernsey, the 8th-Level-and-rising Guernsey FC {see this, ‘FA Cup: Guernsey FC confirmed in 2013-14 FA Cup draw‘ (bbc.co.uk/football)}. Guernsey won 2 matches in the preliminary rounds before falling to Dover Athletic in the 2nd Qualifying Round.

The FA Cup is the world’s oldest association football knock-out competition. It has been competed for every season since 1871-72, with the exception of 10 seasons, with 4 seasons taken off due to WWI (1915-16 to 1918-19) and 6 seasons taken off due to WWII (1939-40 to 1944-45).

For the 2013-14 FA Cup, 737 clubs were accepted into the competition (down from 758 last season). The 2013-14 FA Cup began on 17 August 2013, with the Extra Preliminary Round. After 6 preliminary rounds, the 2012-13 FA Cup First Round Proper will be played from Friday the 8th to Monday the 11th, November 2013, with the bulk of the matches (35) being played on the Saturday. The First Round Proper features 32 Non-league clubs which have survived the preliminary rounds, and as is usually the case, these clubs which have survived the preliminary rounds are all placed in Levels 5 through 8.

There have been only three 9th Level clubs which have qualified for the FA Cup First Round Proper in the last 6 seasons (since 2008-09): Leiston, of coastal Suffolk, qualified in 2008-09; while in 2010-11, two 9th Level clubs qualified – Hythe Town of coastal Kent, and Black Country side Tipton Town (none of those 3 advanced). To qualify for the 1st Round Proper from the 9th Level (or lower), a club has to win 6 matches (entering in the Extra Preliminary Round). To qualify from the 8th Level (which comprises 6 leagues), a club has to win 5 matches (entering in the Preliminary Round). There are two 8th Level clubs which have qualified for the 2013-14 First Round Proper – Daventry Town and Shortwood United, and they are featured further below. To qualify from the 7th Level (which comprises 3 leagues), a club has to win 4 matches (entering in the First Round Qualifying). There are four 7th Level clubs which have qualified for the 2013-14 First Round Proper – Biggleswade Town of Bedfordshire, Corby Town of Northamptonshire, St Albans City from the northern London commuter belt in Hertfordshire, and Stourbridge from the Black Country west of Birmingham. [It should be pointed out that all of the six just-mentioned lowest-placed clubs in the 2013-14 FA Cup First Round Proper all come from the 3-league/2-levels set-up of the Southern League, so congratulations to the Southern Football League.].

To qualify from the 6th Level (which comprises 2 leagues, Conference North and Conference South), a club has to win 3 matches (entering in the Second Round Qualifying). There are eight 6th Level clubs which have qualified for the 2013-14 First Round Proper. To qualify from the 5th Level, the Conference National (which is the lowest national league in the English football league pyramid and is the highest level of Non-League football), a club only has to win one match (in the Fourth Round Qualifying). There are eighteen 5th Level clubs which have qualified for the 2013-14 First Round Proper.
{see this, ‘2013–14 FA Cup Qualifying Rounds‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

The 32 Non-League clubs which have survived after the Fourth Round Qualifying (and the replays) continue on in the competition into the First Round Proper, and are now joined by the 48 clubs in the two lower levels of the Football League – League One (Level 3/24 clubs), and League Two (Level 4/24 clubs). That makes for 80 clubs in the 1st Round. [Clubs from the Premier League (Level 1/20 clubs) and the Football League Championship (Level 2/24 clubs) enter the competition in the Third Round, which usually begins on the first weekend of the new year in January.].
{see this, ‘2013–14 FA Cup‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
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By beating 9th Level/Combined Counties League side Hartley Wintney in a 4th QR match in Hampshire, Daventry Town FC qualified for the FA Cup 1st Round Proper for the first time ever in their 127-year history. An 8th Level club in the Southern League Division One Central, Daventry Town at present sit 3rd in their league, just 3 points behind leaders Barton United, and with games in hand {table, here}. Third in the 8th Level is the same placement as the club’s highest-ever placement, which Daventry Town achieved 3 seasons ago, in 2010-11 (going on to lose in the Southern League Division One Central play-off final to Hitchin Town that year, before a club-record 1,048 at their Elderstubbs ground [present name of Daventry Town's ground, owned by Daventry District Council, is Communications Park]. Counting only regular season home league matches (and not the play-off home matches), Daventry Town drew 131 per game in 2010-11. Their 2011-12 season was a considerable accomplishment for the club, seeing as how 6 years before that, Daventry Town almost went out of existence following an arson attack at the ground in 2005, which resulted in the destruction, by fire, of the clubhouse. As it says in the recently-written DTFC club history at their website’s forum, ‘Photographs, trophies and other items of historical significance to the club were lost; it was a massive setback for the club, who were also involved in protracted negotiations with landowners Daventry District Council over rent demands and arrears, at the time.’ {excerpt from dtfc.co.uk/forum/history-of-daventry-town-fc, written by JWD). Daventry Town were saved when a sponsorship deal with the mobile phone company Go Mobile enabled the club to survive.

The squad in 2010-11, when the club reached its highest placement, was managed by Ade Fuller, who had gotten Daventry Town up from the 9th Level United Counties League the season before. The next season [2011-12], former Daventry Town, Charlton Athletic, and Ireland MF Mark Kinsella was brought in as the new manager, with Fuller expected to be assistant. As one might expect, this did not sit well with Fuller, and Fuller moved 25 km SW to become manager of 7th Level/Southern Premier club Banbury United, taking a large portion of the squad with him. This forced Kinsella to build up a squad from scratch – and the team struggled, finishing in 16th place. Ironically, that difficult season nevertheless saw Daventry Town draw its best in recent years, drawing 184 per game, which was 53 per game more per game than the previous year. That attendance increase was probably attributable to the momentum of the previous season’s play-off run coupled with the return of the club’s most successful player (Kinsella [with the arguable exception of ex-Daventry, ex-Aston Villa MF Lee Hendrie]), but there was also a low cost season ticket on offer that year (of £80, or £3.80 per game), plus one could also factor in the recent re-opening of the fully rebuilt two-story-with-balcony clubhouse (which looks quite nice as your can see below).

At the end of that season [2011-12], the town’s other Non-League club, Daventry United, folded, and their manager Darran Foster moved to Daventry Town as a coaching assistant. However, soon after, Kinsella was relieved of his duties, and Foster took charge of the team, with Foster’s brother Vince becoming club secretary. Last season [2012–2013], Town finished a respectable 8th in the table, but averaged only 101 per game. Much of the 12/13 DTFC squad has returned for the current campaign, and the stability shows, as Daventry continue to get results on the pitch. Attendance has risen a bit this season as the team pushes for promotion – Daventry Town currently average 138 per game. Daventry Town play at the 3,000-capacity Communications Park, which boasts a newly-relaid pitch and whose main feature is the aforementioned new clubhouse, which has a nice second-story balcony offering the best vantage points in the house, and pints starting at just £2.40 (= $3.85 US).

Daventry is a town of around 25,000 in west-central Northamptonshire, 29 km (or 18 mi) SE of Coventry, and 109 km (or 68 mi) NW of London. Owing to its centrality in England, and to it being near the M1 and with good transport links, Daventry has become a warehousing and distribution center. Daventry is home to Britain’s largest diesel engine plant (owned by the Indiana, USA-based Fortune 500 company Cummins, Inc.).

Shortwood United are the smallest drawing and lowest-placed club in the 2013-14 FA Cup 1st Round Proper. This is the first-ever FA Cup 1st Round appearance in the 113-year history of Shortwood United, who play at the tiny 1,500-capacity Meadowbank Ground. The Wood upended 5th Level/Conference (and ex-League) side Aldershot Town by a score of 1-2 in a 4th QR replay on Tuesday 29 October. There were 93 traveling Shortwood fans for the replay, which is a higher number by two than Shortwood United’s current average attendance (from league matches). [Note: the following link has a photo gallery from that match.]. As this article at GetHampshire.com by John Couch states, ‘Two goals in the space of four minutes at the start of the second half from Duncan Culley and Adam Mann sparked Aldershot’s downfall and earned the Gloucestershire village side a lucrative home tie with League One Port Vale in a fortnight’s time. It was no less than they deserved.’ (gethampshire.co.uk/sport/football/match-reports/aldershot-town-booed-after-shortwood [with photo gallery]).

Shortwood United averaged 88 per game in the 9th Level/Hellenic League in 2011-12, when they won promotion to the 8th Level. Last season [2012-13], Shortwood United again averaged 88 per game, when they finished a solid 8th place in the Southern League Division One South & West. Shortwood currently [1 Nov. 2013] are averaging 91 per game this season, and sit 18th (with games in hand), but owing to an overabundance of cup matches, have not played a league match in a month, and are in danger of being drawn in to the relegation battle (Shortwood are playing their second-ever season in the 8th Level). {Southern Football Leagues attendances here}. At 91 per game, Shortwood United are the second-lowest-drawing club to have reached the FA Cup 1st Round in the last 5 years, and the lowest since Tipton Town qualified for the 2010-11 FA Cup 1st Round while averaging 83 per game.

Shortwood United call the small village of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire their home. Nailsworth, which is located around 146 km (or 91 mi) W of London and 37 km (or 23 mi) N of Bristol, is a small town of around 6,000. Nailsworth is located in the rolling hills of the Stroud Valley in the Cotswolds, and does not have a rail link. As its page in Wikipedia states…’Over the past decade the small town centre has been reinvigorated and besides numerous restaurants and cafes now boasts a number of unusual and high-quality shops, you will find two bakers, a delicatessen with a fishmonger, one hardware store, two butchers, craft shops, bookshops, art galleries and a gardening shop.’ {excerpt from ‘Nailsworth‘ (en.wikipedia.org)}. Nailsworth is also the home of the longest-currently-serving 5th Level/Conference club, Forest Green Rovers, aka the Little Club on the Hill, aka the Eco-friendly club, who are in their 16th straight season in the Conference National. The two clubs’ ground are very close by, about .75 km or half-a-mile apart as the crow flies (but about 3 km or 2 mi away by road), and separated only by two fields and a wood (you can see a satellite image of the closeness of the two grounds, with FGR’s ground at the top of the photo and at the top of the hill, and Shortwood’s ground at the foot of the hill, in the image from the link below). As mentioned in the following article, ‘In fact, the cheer that greeted Shortwood’s equaliser that forced a replay against Aldershot on Saturday [Oct. 26] could be heard at the Rovers’ ground.’ [quote from article by Pete Smith, 'Port Vale: Shortwood United game could be switched to Forest Green' (stokesentinel.co.uk)]. Attendance for the Shortwood v Aldershot game was 641, or 7-times higher than the Woods’ average gate.

Shortwood will now face 3rd Level/Football League One club Port Vale of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire on Monday 11 November 2013 in the FA Cup First Round Proper. Only last year, Port Vale were drawn to play Forest Green Rovers away in the 2012-13 FA Cup First Round, so now Port Vale will be traveling to tiny Nailsworth to play in the FA Cup for the second straight year. Port Vale sit 9th in the third tier, currently, making the league-placement difference between the two clubs a whopping 127 places (and 5 levels). The match is scheduled to be played on Monday night November 11 2013 at Meadowbank, Shortwood’s small ground in Nailsworth, and yes, it will be televised – ‘Shortwood will net £67,500 from their live TV FA Cup match against Port Vale‘ (stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk by Asheley Loveridge). Sixty five thousand quid is a massive sum for an 8th division club. It looks like capacity will be restricted to 1,000 for safety purposes and Port Vale will probably receive a ticket allocation of 250.

Shortwood United are jointly managed by ex-Forest Green Rovers legends John Evans and Alex Sykes, both of whom are PE teachers (though Evans is retired). MF Sykes is a player/joint-manager, and is being groomed to take over sole managerial reins eventually. Clubs this far down the English pyramid (ie, below the 5th Level) are of course all amateur, and the current Shortwood squad features a house-painter in goal (Tom King), and a plumber in the midfield (Tim Haddock) {see this, ‘Shortwood United players speak of joy at being FA Cup history boys after Aldershot win‘ (thisisgloucestershire.co.uk)}. Also, in the squad is a rather unusual part-timer, an ex-international male model, the 25-year-old Darren Cully, who lived in and modeled professionally in Los Angeles for a year before moving back to England and playing Non-League football for the first time this season. Cully has scored 11 goals in 17 matches in all competitions for the Wood this season so far, including the first goal (from the penalty spot) in Shortwoods’ shock win over Aldershot Tuesday night {see more on this from this article, ‘Shortwood United dare to dream of another FA Cup upset‘ (stokesentinel.co.uk).

Shortwood United play at the bucolic 1,500-capacity Meadowbank Ground, which is built on the edge of a hill and features a small roofed main stand (which can be seen below), with another smaller stand on the other side. Other than the small clubhouse, a 5-course cinder-block terrace up against the main stand/hill-side of the pitch (also seen below), and the lighting poles which dominate the ground, that is it. There is a pronounced slope to the pitch at Meadowbank (it is built on the side of a hill, after all). As if to reinforce the spartan and out-of-the-way nature of Meadowbank, access to the ground is only by very narrow country lanes which large vehicles such as bus coaches cannot easily fit through {see this from the official Shortwood Uniterd site ‘Narrow Approach Road to Ground – WARNING‘ (pitchero.com/clubs/shortwoodunited)}.